Suicide

Getting sick was both sudden and gradual. The timeline of my mental health disorder, or rather disorders because I endured several, was so erratic, waxing and waning, often corresponding to a momentous event in my life or the birth of one of my children or the death of a loved one.

Now in my 70's, I can look back over my life and see some of the positive things that resulted from having experienced depression.

The dull ache of depression had lodged in my belly for several years like a sponge, soaking away the dopamine and serotonin from the rest of my body, buoyed only by, “it runs in the family,” from a generation that thought therapy, and especially medication, meant institutionalization and perhaps an eventual lobotomy.  

“As traumatized children, we always dreamed that someone would come and save us. We never dreamed that it would, in fact, be ourselves as adults.” – Alice Little 

When my mom saw my situation, she also understood there was something wrong. She took me to a psychiatrist and they confirmed that I had clinical depression.

One of the problems with OCD is that you lose so much time. That evening when my dad called me and my siblings to dinner, I went to save my progress on the game, but I couldn’t just save it and walk away like before. I was ‘stuck’.